


Would You Forget?

by irisqod



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dreams, Gen, Nightmares, Post Reichenbach, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-25
Updated: 2012-11-25
Packaged: 2017-11-19 12:53:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/573504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irisqod/pseuds/irisqod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is given a choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Would You Forget?

John was standing alone in Regent’s Park. He must have come by the Tube and gotten off a Baker Street since he no longer lived at 221 B. He couldn’t really recall exactly how he’d gotten here.

Things weren’t quite right. The air felt thick and the sky had a sort of smudgy bruised look to it. There was no one else in the park and there were no sounds of birds or cars passing on the roads. It was completely silent.

He looked down at himself and for the first time realized he was naked.

_I’m dreaming_. He didn’t try to cover himself, he was alone and dreaming so whom was he trying to spare? It wasn’t like he’d get stuck in the dock for being a pervert. The park was empty.

John was close to the Triton Fountain, but the fountain wasn’t on. The water in the basin around it was clogged with duckweed and algae, what clear surface there was reflected the bruised sky. It was growing darker and a cold breeze had sprung up. His skin humped up into goosebumps.

_Not a good dream, then_. Ever since Afghanistan, his dreams had tended towards the nightmare variety. Since Sherlock killed himself, they had gotten darker. Blood, sand and watching Sherlock fall all took turns in the nocturnal theater of his mind. He hadn’t ever been this aware in one of his dreams, however.

He took a few steps around the perimeter of the fountain and noticed more details. The landscaping was looking rather ragged and shaggy, as if the gardeners had all given up and let things go wild. There were vines growing through the trees, strangling the branches. All the flowers were brown and dead. The grass was so dry that it looked like it had been scorched.

There was one tree that looked healthy. It wasn’t like any tree John had ever seen or heard of. It looked like a tree, but was somehow more than that. There was an animal quality to it that made him uncomfortable. The leaves were the most vibrant green he’d ever seen and they all seemed to move together giving the tree the appearance that it was beckoning him to come close to it. They undulated like waves on a wind blown sea.

Before he knew he was doing it he was walking towards it, the dead grass crunched under his bare feet; it was sharp and he was sure that it was cutting into his skin. Now that he was closer to the tree, he could see the leaves were all translucent and the bark on the trunk and branches was papery like that of a birch tree. The fruit it bore was purple and round.

He reached out and touched it and It sighed his name, “Johhhn”. He pulled his hand away like it had been burned. The voice was familiar and he recognized it at once. He touched the tree again and again his name was spoken in a sigh, “Johhhn”. The voice wasn’t the tree’s at all, but the snake in its branches.

This isn’t Eden, this is a dream. The snake moved its way down so it was on eye level with John.

“Hello John,” said the serpent. It was long and sleek and its scales were a glossy black.

“Hello Mycroft,” John said to the snake. “What are you doing here in my dream?”

“I’ve come to make you an offer. A choice, if you like.” The Mycroft-serpent slithered around the circumference of the tree and grinned at John.

“A choice? What is this? ‘The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil’? I don’t believe in that sort of thing anymore. This certainly isn’t Eden.”

“No, its not. It’s just a convenient way for your mind to see this. And no, not the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. This is the Tree of Forgetfulness. If you want to, you can eat its fruit and forget that you ever knew Sherlock. All those memories will be gone.” The Mycroft-serpent coiled itself around one of the gleaming fruits, plucked it off the tree and with its coils extended it to John.

The fruit was a dark purple and the mottled skin glistened under the odd sky. It looked over-ripe and ready to split.

John thought on this for a moment. Would he want to forget the time spent in the company of Sherlock Holmes? The chaos. The danger. The total vibrant, brilliant madness of it all. The pain? The loss? The best friend he'd ever had? Could John live a ‘normal’ life; find a woman and get married, raise a family?

“No. I don’t want it. Go away, Mycroft.” John’s voice came out strong and resolute. “I would not change a single thing. If I forget Sherlock, then he really would be gone.”

“As you will,” said the Mycroft-serpent and slithered back up into the higher branches of the tree, dropping the fruit on the ground where it ruptured, spilling its rotten pulp on the dead grass.

“Not one single thing!” John yelled at it agin. The dream ended and John was back in his room, sitting bolt upright in his narrow bed repeating his statement.

_Not one single thing_.


End file.
